One sheet wonder

I’m a huge fan of the first ‘Mission Impossible’ film. Director Brian De Palma should be credited with setting the standard for adapting television shows for feature films. It’s a great spy thriller, years ahead of the gritty resurgence of the genre via ‘The Bourne Identity’ and ‘Casino Royale’.

‘Mission Impossible 2’ was a disaster, and played out like a tourism commercial for Australia.

Thanks to the brilliant J.J. Abrams, ‘Mission Impossible 3’ returned to the basics that made the first film so enjoyable.

That brings us to ‘Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol’. Abrams is on producing duties this time, with director Brad Bird behind the camera. Bird comes from the house of Pixar where he directed ‘The Incredibles’ and ‘Ratatouille’, whilst working as part of the senior creative team on every other Pixar project. Despite his success with Pixar, Bird holds a place in most film geek’s hearts for his work on ‘The Iron Giant’, one of the most underrated animated films of all time. Can Bird go from animation to live action with ease? Time will tell, but everything we’ve seen so far has been impressive and we hope Bird can pull it off.

In ‘Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol’ the IMF is shut down when it’s implicated in the bombing of the Kremlin, causing Ethan Hunt and his new team to go rogue to clear their organization’s name. The cast is impressive with Tom Cruise, Simon Pegg, Jeremy Renner, Tom Wilkinson and series favourite Ving Rhames reprising his role.

Rumours have been flying around that Cruise will pass the baton onto Renner, who will continue to carry the franchise in future films. Renner has signed on to reboot the ‘Bourne’ franchise, as well as taking on superhero duties in ‘The Avengers’ and, any future Marvel Studios films that require his talents. We might as well throw in a rumour of him becoming the next James Bond for good measure!

Paramount Pictures has released a new poster for ‘Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol’.

Cruise looks like he means business, but it’s the lit fuse on the bottom left that gets us excited. The image is so iconic with the series, and hopefully the film delivers the goods later this year.

‘Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol’ is released in Australia 15 December 2011, and in the US on 21 December 2011.